For those of you that know me, you know that out of all the things I claim to do, being a songwriter is one of them. I haven’t sat down to write in quite awhile, mostly because I’ve been insanely busy. But periodically the bug will jump up and bite me again. This is one of those times. I can tell when I get to that point because I start having really abstract thoughts about life and they all find a way to rhyme. For the past couple years I’ve just pushed those thoughts away because I didn’t think I could do it. I don’t think I’m gonna fight this time. It’s time to write another record’s worth of songs.
Some of you will say, “Hey, record the first set of songs”. To you I will say, “I’m doing that next month”. But that doesn’t take away what’s naturally inside of me, and that is to write about life through the eyes God has given me. As always, I like help. So I’m reaching out to some of my friends to see what we can come up with. I guess if I start now I can be working on a solid follow up album to the one that I’m going to be working on soon. I love this part of my life. I can’t wait to see what God has to say.
I know someone will look me up and try to find my house and lynch me after reading that title, but hear me out.
How many of you either were a part of or went to a service this past Sunday and it was just top notch with all the stops pulled out? Did they have a big choir or a special video or animals walking through the sanctuary? We did some things a little bit differently at The Word this weekend and it was pretty cool. After the service was over with, I immediately wanted to smack myself for not thinking ahead. I’ve seen this happen at many churches in my years of being a leader and musician and I got so wrapped up in making Easter special that I did the same thing. What am I talking about? I’m talking about Church Service Letdown. You may have never heard of it, mostly because I just made that up. You have experienced it though. It looks like this: You have one of the most visually stunning, musically epic, scripturally sound, technically gorgeous service you’ve ever had and you’ve wooed your members as well as your visitors and they can’t wait to come back to this cool church. Then they come in the next Sunday and your service looks NOTHING like it did the week before. It could look different in a myriad of ways. The energy is just not there. The associate pastor gets a chance to preach because the senior pastor went on vacation. The set looks just like it did the week before because everyone was too tired to change it. Your band is sloppy because you gave them a week off from rehearsal and they hid their instruments under the car because they didn’t want to see them again. Whatever it is that happened, Sunday after Easter looks dramatically different than the awesome week before.
The reason I say it can mess up a church is because Easter is such an awesome opportunity for outreach. I know we had some people in our church that we’d never seen before and a lot of that ties right in to the fact that we were out trying to reach people for Easter. It almost seems like a gimmick when we get them in and share with them this super slick service with all the bells and whistles we have and then the next week we give them a B team. It can be confusing. I’ve even been a part of a church that gave a disclaimer that next week that said something to affect of ‘this won’t be all exciting like last week, but this is more like who we are on a weekly basis.’ That was service suicide. Am I saying that we need to put Easter caliber services together each week? No, because people would surely die. I do, however, think we should not let the skill, preparation and execution die off the next week. We should still be shooting for excellence and and giving our best because people are watching. This can be difficult because Easter is so special and we want it to stand out. I totally agree with this thought process. But we don’t want to make it look like the rest of the time we get together is merely out of duty. We want to show that the worship experience is a special, sacred time every time we open the door.
I totally won’t judge ANY church that doesn’t give everything the week after Easter. As I write this I also have to plan for the men’s retreat that I’m playing for this weekend that will take me away from my church. Fortunately, I’m leaving my church in very capable hands and they may not want me back after she gets done. We will see…
Talk to any pastor or staff member at a church this week and you’ll hear about this epidemic. Check with them and see how many either didn’t work yesterday or were completely out of it. It will be most of them. Why? We are suffering from Easter Hangover. It’s a condition that brings on extreme exhaustion and the inability to execute simple tasks like talking, eating and standing up. Some (like my dad last night) have even been known to fall asleep wherever they happen to be at the time. At this time, there is no cure for this condition, as churches all over the place will work super hard every year to get as many people in the doors of their church to hear the story of the cross and the resurrection as they possibly can. This condition has been linked to a similar one called the Christmas Hangover. Symptoms are pretty much the same. Generally, the people are wearing more clothes when they pass out in random places though. If you happen to go to your church over the next few days, be particularly careful walking through the sanctuary or any hallways in the offices as staff members may have fallen asleep and stayed in the floor. If you encounter a staff member laying down for more than 4 hours, don’t call a doctor. Just get down close to their ear and say “He is Risen” and they will respond and get right up and keep moving.
All kidding aside, I am totally suffering from the exhaustion that follows such a big week and weekend at our church. We spent mostly every night at the church this past week with rehearsals and set up and stuff like that. Then I had 2 cars go down and a tornado left my father in law stranded here and it led for a crazy weekend. I didn’t even get to share my Sunday Set List with you guys, and I was quite excited about it. Oh well. I may add it in later in the week.
Is anyone else out there suffering from Easter Hangover? How was your Easter weekend? Did your church do anything special? Did you spend time with family after your church service? Do you go to the Cardinals game and sit in a suite? Oh wait, that was me… Let me hear how YOUR weekend went.
When I was little, I used to do some silly stuff. Once I’m was trying to cook an egg and the fire was too high. Instead of using the same knob to turn it back down, I tried to wave it down with my hand. I burned myself and got mad at the stove. My mom’s first line was, “What did you expect to happen after you put your hand on the flame?” I don’t know what I was thinking. I was a hungry boy. They don’t think much. I could tell lots of stories about things I’ve done like that, but I think you get the picture. Plus, if you keep reading those then you’ll start to wonder if I’m actually sane enough to write this stuff.
So many times we have an opinions about how things should go. Even more, we always seem to know how to negatively respond when things don’t go the way we think they should. One of my favorite circumstances occurs when something bad happens to us. We love to ask why God is punishing us. We immediately place the blame on someone else without any self examination.
What are you expecting from you worship experience in your church? Do you come with a heart ready to give God the praise he deserves and open to receive what God may want to say to you any particular Sunday morning? Do you come with an attitude of what can I give to the Lord? Or are you coming wondering if they are going to sing your favorite song? When we come with the attitude of ‘what is going to be done for me’ more times than not you will leave disappointed. To this I would ask, what did you expect? You are giving the leaders of your church a very small target to hit. You placed it 750 yards away in 58 mph crosswinds. I think you get what I’m saying…
Sometimes I think we need to shift our expectations before we walk in the door. I have expectations when I step on the stage on Sunday mornings. Whenever they are focused on me (and sometimes that happens) then I leave upset and think that the whole service was a bust. Then I have to get home and ask my self about the expectations that I had. In the end, it generally leads back to something that I didn’t do. That always feels GREAT!
What are you expecting God to do? What about this weekend? We already know the story. But do you expect that it will change your life again? Or are you just ready for dinner that happens with the family after the service? Are you ready to count the extra people that will walk in the door because of the special Sunday holiday? Will you allow the cross to come in and change your heart? Are you willing to feel the weight of Christ’s death on the cross be so overwhelming that you become so broken? Will you let the resurrection lift you higher than you’ve ever been before and then rejoice in Christ’s victory over the grave? Or have we become so Christian-ized that we are doing this out of duty? What are YOU expecting God to do?
For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
1 Corinthians 2:2
How big a statement is that??? Paul says to the Corinthians that nothing matters to him except knowing Christ and why he chose to die for us. He realized even then that the Gospel was so rich and so deep that he would have to pour all of his energy into trying to really understand it. If you read Romans you know that he gave us some pretty amazing thoughts about the Gospel and how magnificent it really is.
How difficult is that for us? To really be THAT passionate for Christ? I mean, there are some people who have devoted their lives to understanding the Word and breaking down the Greek and Hebrew and what was really being said. And generally we applaud them and wait for them to write something that we can read. Paul lived a long time ago, but I have to imagine that he had his own share of distractions that were competing for his attention during his travels and between stints in jail. So how much more difficult is it for us to search for Christ and strive to know him more when things like Facebook, Twitter, sports, movies, cars, women, men, food, phones, jobs, money, hobbies and whatever else beg and plead for our attention every minute? I’m not saying that we need to drop everything that we are doing and study the Bible full time. All joking aside, there are people who do that and that’s something they are called to. I do, however, believe that many times today our focus becomes shifted and we tend to throw Christ and our pursuit of him into the jumbled mix of junk that I mentioned above.
We are in the midst of Holy Week and starting tonight things start to really pick up in this story. It is very important to remember that Christ died for us. His death on the cross was for one reason and one reason only. We were too dirty, to filthy, to sin-filled to pay the debt ourselves and so he had to come in and take our place.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
1 John 4:7-12
Nothing but a perfect love, a passionate love would do that for us. Wouldn’t it only be right that we would in turn pursue him passionately as a result? I mean, if nothing else we should live our lives as a passionate thank you to him. Our worship should be given as a passionate thank you. Our time and money should be spent as passionate thank you’s. Thank you Jesus for this. I’m forever grateful for what you did on the cross. I like the way Joel Houston expresses it.
No, I’m not being anti-patriotic. I’m not saying that everything the people of our country fought for should be removed. Don’t get mad at me. I’m still an American and love it. I’m speaking about a different liberty. The liberty that we exercise when it comes to speaking in front of people. You’ve heard pastors say it from the pulpit many times as they are preaching and they take a view of a passage or a situation that isn’t easily seen or just based on how they think. I am not going to blame them because I’ve done that myself. I’m speaking of those who have walked out on a breaking limb and said some things that may not even be true or edifying for the body, but say these things under the auspices of taking their own liberties.
As leaders we have to be REALLY careful about the things we say from the stage. People listen to everything and they form their thoughts and opinions about things from what they hear from the stage. ESPECIALLY in the church setting. It doesn’t really matter what it is. I was speaking a couple months ago as I was introducing a song that my wife was going to sing in Spanish. I got ahead of my thoughts and ended up making a really funny mistake. But 5 or 6 weeks later and people are still talking about that. What we don’t always see as leaders is how people respond to some of the things that we say in all seriousness that send people out forming opinions and lifestyle changes that we really don’t want them to make.
Being one that is on stage weekly, I have a sensitivity to us that spend so much time in front of people. I know that we only have a short time, particularly as worship pastors and leaders, to share with people and pour into them from that position. So we want to say something and find that line or couple lines where people we go “man, that person gave me something I had never heard before. How smart and insightful!” But I want to warn us against just saying things because we want to say something. Let’s be conscience of what we’re saying. I will leave you with one of the WORST examples of this I’ve seen in a while. It’s a video from a church service where the pastor took some liberties to try to get a point across. It’s flat out bad. I was intrigued as the name of the church is the Word. I was wondering if I had missed something at my own church, but turns out it was another church. Speaking of The Word at Shaw, our new website is finally up and running. Check it out by going to www.thewordatshaw.org. Or you can just click here.
Let me also preface this clip by saying to you that he doesn’t actually say the word. So when you see the title, don’t get freaked out. I don’t want anyone to miss out on this for thinking I put something up THAT wrong. This is a blog about worship after all.
Perfect. No flaws. No Blemishes. Unconditional. Not inappropriate. Missing nothing. A man?
That’s right. I am still amazed at what it took for my sins to be cleansed. Jesus was the only one with a love so perfect, so complete, that could completely wash away everything that had been done and was to come. That’s mind blowing. I’m eternally thankful everyday for that fact. We tend to think about it more during this Easter season as I have been doing myself. It goes beyond all reason in my mind that God would send His son to come and die. But He did. We are forever changed as a result.
When something is perfect, it gets lots of notoriety and lots of times it is considered very valuable and rare. A pure diamond. Someone pitches a perfect game. Both of these things are rare and if either of them surfaces they will receive lots of publicity. We are always searching for something perfect. The perfect gift. The perfect boyfriend or girlfriend. The perfect steak. The perfect car. The car company Lexus uses the tag line ‘The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection’. I think we are all constantly searching for that perfect thing. Until now, there’s no one that has been able to find that here on this imperfect earth. Especially when it comes to love. There’s only one way that a love could be perfect. It has to come from a perfect person. A perfect love is one that we can fully embrace because it fully embraces us. There is nothing to be afraid of when it comes to a perfect love (1 John 4:18). Christ’s perfect love is flawless.
There’s someone out there that needs to know the freedom that comes from a perfect love. You may sit next to them at work. You may sit next to them in church. You may sleep next to them at night. They are all around and they are missing the one thing you have. They may not know that there is a love that exists that cuts right through the dirt and sin in their lives and cleans it out. We have a job to share that perfect love with the people that don’t have it. We have to worship in a way that shows the people sitting in the chairs next to us what it feels like to experience that perfect love during our corporate worship times at church. We have to continue to learn what it means to live in this perfect love that we have been given. A perfect love can be overwhelming to try and understand. It’s a difficult thing to receive. It’s irrational to expect. At least from anyone on earth. But the Father in heaven presented us with a perfect love. That perfect love was sent down to us to cleanse us from us our sins and take them upon himself. Share that love with someone this week. Share that love with someone today.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.19 We love because he first loved us.
Today is Palm Sunday in the church world and everyone is celebrating the day that Jesus rode into town on a donkey and people had NO idea what this week was gonna look like. But they were celebrating like crazy on this day, so that’s what we are gonna do this Sunday. I chose some music that cheer on Jesus. Here’s what I did:
All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name- Edward Perronet- This song is quite regal and the words are very king-ified. I just made that word up. We aren’t changing any of the words, just giving it a different beat to be an opener.
Hosanna (Praise Is Rising)- Paul Baloche- A Greater Song- What better way to celebrate than by saying what they said when they welcomed Jesus into town? Not to mention I’m a Paul Baloche fan and this is one of my top songs.
O Praise Him-David Crowder-Illuminate- I like this song. I have liked this song for awhile. I couldn’t sing it at first because I had some crazy counting issues. I love listening to David Crowder sing. I laugh because he’s funny to me, but he writes good stuff. “How infinitely sweet, this love so rescuing…”
Sing to the King-Billy Foote-I Have a River- Say what you want about this song, but I like it. It’s simple. It gets the point across. There isn’t much there but a great message, which is a lot. We are closing the service with this one.
We normally sing more music on a Sunday, but we have a special guest this week that is going to be doing a praise dance to the song Hosanna (Be Lifted Higher) by Israel Houghton. I’m excited for this because it’ll be something new that hasn’t been done at the church before. Yay for new stuff!!!
Whatever you do and wherever you find yourself this morning, give God some praise. He deserves it.
I want to take today and give a bit of encouragement. Today is Friday and we are wrapping this week up and gearing up for a weekend of whatever. For me it’s passing out door hangers and a Easter event for children at the church tomorrow. I know that some people will walk into the doors of some church on Sunday morning and sometimes that’s just a part of our weekend. I encourage you to bring in a mindset of freedom with you. Christ has given us freedom to worship him and we should live in that. Use the start of this weekend to practice. We have this freedom all the time. We should be living in this freedom all the time. It really is an interesting concept. So with everything that you do this weekend, think about how Christ has set you free. Pay attention to how that affects your mind and actions.
As I mentioned yesterday, I’m going to be working on a couple new ideas for starting the worship conversation. Keep an eye out for it if you’re interested. I’m also working on another site that I will probably link to this one that will be for music nerds like myself. I’ll let you know.
Sometimes I feel like this profession and calling of mine as a worship leader is more polarizing than any job out there. It could be because as generations come and go things change and people change and music changes. OR, it could be that I’m trying so hard to find a way to bring multiple groups together to worship together. I personally would love to find a way to bring multiple generations and styles of worship together on a regular basis. You know, church. What a concept! There is such a difficulty in making this happen, but my desire to see this happen regularly has been reignited by a conversation that started on Facebook this. I am in the process of creating a project that will have me interviewing people of different ages, races, denominations, and musical abilities to figure out some things for myself. I don’t think that anything I say will fix the million year debate of worship in the church. I do, however, believe that I can make a difference in my own circle of influence. That’s what I’m setting out to do.
I want to get the sides talking. Communication is a key. Openminded-ness is a key. I want to create a forum for all these things to happen. That’s where this whole worship180 idea was birthed. It’s time to go next level. I want you to join me. Anyone who is willing to jump in on this conversation let’s get it. Let’s go for real. Bring all your thoughts, feelings, gripes, whatever. We are going to lay it all out on the table. Not because I like to see people go after each other. But we are called to encourage each other and love each other and worship together. I want people to be able to worship together. If this works out, it will redefine worship in my heart, your heart, your church and mine.
Here’s my position on this. Everyone has something to say. If they didn’t then we would have this continuous debate. So let’s get it out. If you’re not willing to talk about it out loud, then don’t complain in private. That’s detrimental to the body. Let’s build the body up. If we keep tearing the body down from the inside, it won’t take much for someone from the outside to just knock us over.
